Nigeria may be regaled with another in the series of financial scams as critical stakeholders in the Ogoni clean-up project have called on the Federal Government and the National Assembly to look into the expenditure of the Hydrocarbon Pollution, Remediation Project (HYPREP) the way the National Assembly is doing with the books of the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC) project.
Established in 2016 to drive the mandate of remediating the heavily polluted Ogoni environment and restore the livelihood of the people of the affected geographical area in Rivers State, HYPREP faces the same measure, if not more, of criticism as the NDDC on the scale of financial management, speed of job execution and specification.
Last Monday, the Federal Ministry of Environment, supervising ministry that oversees the activities of HYPREP sparked up the fury of some stakeholders when it published the achievements recorded in three years of working in line with the recommendations of the United Nations to cleanup Ogoni, through the instrumentalities of HYPREP.
Picking holes in the advertorial, President of Movement for the Emancipation of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Fegalo Nsuke, said what HYPREP is doing is to attempt to climb the tree from the top (by) “claiming that the remediation is on when the basic activities required for the process have been skipped for a later period.”
Expressing his misgivings, Fegalo stated that Ogonis “expected the process to commence with water provision, compensation for losses of livelihood while the physical structures, including the Centre of Excellence will be under construction.
“We must acknowledge that the work of HYPREP has been shrouded in secrecy. The communities have not been involved in the work of HYPREP and there had been no way for independent verification of what HYPREP is doing by those communities.”
The MOSOP president said the water project which the Governing Council of HYPREP approved in 2017 was an integrated water project for the entire Ogoni, adding that that should have been executed in partnership with the Rivers State government. He added that what HYREP is doing now is different.
“Notwithstanding, we are now liaising with HYPREP and we hope we can now work together to streamline everything and achieve progress, and win community support for the project.
“HYPREP has received over $360 million and there hasn’t been much to show for it. So, a lot of looting has taken place in HYPREP as far as we are concerned and a probe will be appropriate to verify how prudent they have spent the much they have received from the International Oil Companies, IOCs.”
In the same vein, Dr. Sam Kabari, a senior lecturer in the Department of Marine Environment and Pollution Control, Okerenkoko University, fumed at the slow pace of job execution and the process adopted by the remediation agency which fell short of the critical recommendations of the United Nations on the subject matter.
Kabari, in a telephone interview, said that while he may not call for an outright probe of the finances of HYPREP, he would rather advocate that external auditors be allowed to look into the financial management of the agency to authenticate how transparent it has been with the commonwealth of the Ogoni people in the past three years.
According to him, lack of Key Performance Indicator (KPI) which was supposed to be a guide to ascertain the rate of work done by the agency, was lacking.
“Without that Key Performance Indicator, you cannot carry out an independent examination of what they have achieved in the exercise. They don’t want anybody to have access to those indicators.
“The United Nations clearly recommended that there should be, at least, five monitoring groups for the remediation.
“But, today, none has been set up. I don’t know what HYPREP is afraid of. If by any means, it is found out that HYPREEP’s account is not transparent, then it case will be worse than that of NDDC.”
Kabari, also the head of the Environment and Conservative Unit at Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), a non-governmental organisation, said it was worrisome that after three years, HYPREP was still in the ‘process’ of doing anything and everything in cleaning up Ogoni polluted environment.
“If their account is not transparent, then those who are calling for its probe may be right. I pray that they should be transparent. And I pray also that they should.”
Also irked by the publicity stunt by the Ministry of Environment, a group known as the sustainable Ogoni People Initiative (SOPI) frowned at what the project office of HYPREP is boosting as its achievements in three years.
“We believe that this publicity is necessitated by the fear from the probe which the National Assembly has carried out on NDDC. Why do we think so?
“On February 24, 2020, SOPI wrote to HYPREP through its solicitors, Reliefs Law Chambers, demanding information concerning work done on the Ogoni clean-up exercise. We acted based on the Freedom of Information Act and they received the letter in HYPREP on February 28, 2020.
“On the 5/5/2020 we received a response from HYPREP with reference no Hyprep/Legal/008/1. The first thing we were told is that the project coordinator’s office cannot tell us how much it has received because the board of trustees of HYPREP manages the funds of HYPREP.
“They further said that the governing council of HYPREP approves and monitors the utilisation of funds in HYPREP while the BoT releases such funds to them. Therefore, the project Coordinator office of HYPREP didn’t tell us how much it has received for the project.”
In a telephone conversation with the Executive Director of SOPI, Dr. Gbenekanu Ledornubari Mpigi, in his effort to know if adequate funding was the bane of the agency to underperform, he said he requested to be given details of the contract signed by HYPREP and the various companies they have engaged due to some substandard work they are doing in some sites, HYPREP responded by saying that Sec 15(1) a and b of FOIA forbade them from divulging such information.
“While our lawyers are still working on our next step of action regarding this issue of not being transparent, we want to state that SOPI is a local NGO that is concerned about the sustainability of Ogoni environment and its people. Therefore, it is not out of place for us to be furnished with information from HYPREP and its contractors since they are working for the Ogoni people which we represent.”
On the names of companies HYPREP has engaged and the worth of the contract/amount paid Mpigi said HYPREP gave him a list of 36 companies. They quoted the worth of the contracts but when it comes to money they have released thus far, HYPREP’s project office quoted percentage.
“In March 2020, a committee from the House of Representatives paid an oversight visit to HYPREP’s sites and drama happened. As fate might have it to uncover the shady deals going on in HYPREP, the committee stopped at LOT 10 (we have pictures and video evident) but the project coordinator was hurrying them out.
“We are left with two options, it’s either Dr. Dekii (Project Director) is a contractor or standing in for contractors that are not existing. He can’t be a judge in his own case, it’s either he should face the Project Coordinator’s office or go to the field and become a contractor,” he alleged.
Mpigi wondered how the project coordinator could list 400 Ogoni women that are about to start training as an achievement?
“In three years, all the Project Coordinator’s office can boost is the training of 15 Ogoni youths in fabrication. Who knows how much they will tell you this has cost them for the three months?
“We want to state it categorically that there has not been any water treatment done in Ogoni, if HYPREP wants to give Ogonis drinkable water they surely know how to achieve it.
“Let Dr. Dekii forget about using money meant for the development of the Ogoni environment for media and publicity and invest it in the lives that are deteriorating due to the adverse effect of pollution,” he appealed.
The SOPI executive director went on to claim that “so much money is going into the HYPREP, but very little is showing and for us not to get to the point where we are at NDDC today, please we want a thorough and robust audit of the activities of HYPREP. This should include but not limited to; awards of contracts, employment, training and staff welfare.
Against all odds, the Ministry of Environment insisted that about 70% of the contractors in the Phase I Batch I are ready to handover remediated sites by August and the remaining 30% by the end of November, saying HYPREP has made huge progress and achievement.
“With youths trained on alternative livelihood, remediation processes and women livelihood programmes about to start, Ogoni cleanup has recorded progress in the livelihood programme,” it said.
In obvious contradiction from the postulations of the stakeholders, the Ministry through Isa Wasa, Head (Community and Community Engagement) informed that with the massive community and stakeholder engagements to sensitise and get their inputs and participation “was a step in the right direction for local participation in the project.”
Pressing further, he said: “With the successes recorded and testimonies during the two medical outreaches carried out by HYPREP, Ogoni clean-up has touched and changed lives positively,” even as “the progress achieved in the process towards the provision of a sustainable WHO standard drinking water, Ogoni clean-up has not failed.”
Source:Sunday Independent
